Pat Robertson said something else stupid and insensitive.
ROBERTSON: [S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.
But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle, on the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.
They need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now, we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.
[h/t to Think Progress]
It amazes me that Republicans consistently demonstrate a willingness to show the public their lack of historical knowledge. Here Pat Robertson is pontificating about Haitian history like he has a clue, and he tells us that the Haitians won their independence ‘a long time ago’ from ‘Napoleon III or whatever.’
What does this show about Pat Robertson’s blindness? Well, the Haitian’s won their independence from Napoleon Bonaparte (also known as Napoleon the First of France). Napoleon was so frustrated by the success of the slave revolt in Haiti that he decided to give up his plans for a New World French Empire and sell the Americans the Louisiana Territory. Thus, America gained “all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, parts of Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi River, most of North Dakota, nearly all of South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide, and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans.” That’s how the Haitian ‘deal with the devil’ helped create our country. This all happened in 1803 and 1804. Napoleon was exiled to St. Helena in 1815 where he died in 1821.
Napoleon the Third wasn’t even born until four years after Haiti won its independence, and he didn’t come to power until he was elected president in 1848 (he thereafter became dictator and then king). He was a nephew of Napoleon the First, and not his son.
But Pat Robertson doesn’t care about any of that because he wants to tell us a ‘true story’ about the slaves making a deal with the devil to free them from the heel of Napoleon the Third, or whatever.
